Corona update:
What a crazy time to be alive! Reporting straight from Rome here, and as most of you should know by now, today was the first official day our prime minister Giuseppe Conte declared the entire Italian peninsula to be on ‘protective lockdown’. But what does this look like? I commuted to work this morning, and everything felt rather normal: the metros were still busy, just less busy. My office, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, declared temporary closure moments after the prime minister declared the national lockdown. This happened by means of an extraordinary broadcast around 10 pm on the 9th of March, 2020. About 70% of the staff, including the myself, will be working from home, that is, teleworking. The lockdown deal is, you can go out of your house either for work, or something necessary (e.g. groceries). Last night (10/3/20), while I was walking my dogs, I definitely felt the ‘lockdown’. The streets were silent. The only other people out were the occasional other dog walkers. There’s a quiet tension which is very unusual. Nobody really knows how to react instinctively to this virus and the measures we are taking. Most farmer markets, supermarkets seem to be open during the day until around 6 pm. People are much more mindful about space, and leaving the house in general. Currently, as I have no internet in my new apartment, I am teleworking from the bar downstairs, Yeah! In Pigneto (great spot for drinks and Aperitivo after this whole World War Z ordeal is over). Naturally, I will do my best to keep the blog up and running, although this virus has complicated a lot of aspects of everyone’s life around here, including my own.
There’s an inherent awkwardness in trying to express yourself in a different language. It sucks. It makes you feel very stupid and it’s easy for us to turn this negative cocktail of emotions into wanting to stop trying to speak the language.
At least, this was the case in my experience. I’ll tell you more. I lived about 6 years in Japan, and I still don’t speak Japanese; I’m terrible at it and I feel embarrassed with myself for not having learned it. Superman has kryptonite, I have Japanese. To highlight this feeling more, I learned to speak Dutch at an upper intermediate level in the same amount of time. Huh, how does that work? Is Japanese harder? Maybe, but that’s not it, and if it was it, wouldn’t matter. For me, there were several reasons, as there at the time I was learning Japanese, I was already learning English (I spoke at a B2 level until I was 14 or so). On top of that, I was also an over excitable teenager who didn’t want to study anything for more than 5 minutes a day, let alone a third language. I look back and I sigh, and maybe cringe as well, for a multitude of reasons. See exhibit A:
Years pass with me speaking elementary Japanese, barely keeping up in class. Eventually, when I came back from Japan in 2011, after the Kanto plain earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that hit Fukushima Daichi (oh yeah, that happened), I’ve been scared to speak Japanese. Six years of my life and heritage; my miserable childlike sentences and awkward calligraphy were all I could show for! As you may imagine, I pretty much lost all my Japanese since then, at least, in the practical, conversational sense. Something I like to say at times is:
a mistake is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.
When I moved to the Netherlands I absolute did not want to make the same mistake. I spoke to everyone, fully aware and fully unaware of the silly things that might have been coming out of my mouth. This goes in phases. At first, you’re regent of the hill (yay for gender neutrality): you speak and people kinda get you. You leave with a smile on your face. As you get better, however, you start hearing how much you really suck. It’s funny, but it’s true, not only for languages! It happened a lot to me in highschool and early on in university. If I didn’t study that much for an exam, I’d enter into the room fully confident I’d do well, only to find my results were almost below average or even fails (this kicked me in the ass several years later). On the other hand, when I would study a lot, I would panic. I’d enter the exam room, thinking I didn’t know enough to pass, and magically, I’d end up scoring high or at least above average. It makes sense really, this inflated sense of confidence, in the first case, comes from you not knowing how much you don’t know.
N.B.: Did you can get all Simpsons episodes in Spanish for free? Check out my lingolist under TV shows and movies.
When I would study, I suddenly became aware (woah dude). The same way, once you start improving in something, you start seeing how you fell short in the past, and it kinda sucks. It’s like recording yourself singing only to find you should never consider that career path. Okay, enough with the personal anecdotes sigh. Be aware of your language learning. Be conscious and when you start feeling demotivated, awkward, or that you are not good enough, sit with that feeling for a moment. Let it pass. Try to focus on the fact that you know, and that now, you will learn from your mistakes. It’s difficult, give yourself a pat on the shoulder. Rationalize and rejoice in the fact that you are AWARE. It’s difficult, but it’s important to take these moments and not let them put you down, but for them to motivate you. There is no deadline for you to learn a language, only the one you set yourself. You aren’t disappointing anyone but yourself and goals you set in the past are contingent on how realistic you were. Remember when I tried learning Turkish in three weeks (lol)? If you realize you’ve been too ambitious, adjust your goals. Don’t give up. I was teaching English for a short time before I started at the UN. The school I taught at also had other language courses, like Japanese. I bumped into the Japanese teacher, and for the first time in years, I had a conversation in Japanese. And you know what? I spoke slowly, my pronunciation was probably off, asked her to repeat because I didn’t understand everything. But it was okay. I felt free from this irrational fear I had and I finally feel like I’m ready to start speaking and learning Japanese. Make mistakes, my friends, because, as a wise boy once said, a mistake is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.
That being said, I already know I'm going to regret this...
じゃあねー (goodbye),
calypso
Comentarios